Items tagged with bbm

Arguably, BlackBerry should've opened up its BBM platform to everyone years ago, as it could've leapfrogged Hangouts, iMessage, Snapchat, and some of the other chat tools ahead of where we are now. At this point, the BBM userbase is so small, that it arriving on iOS and Android a while back has had little impact on the company's overall stake in mindshare. That said, BBM is still probably the company's strongest software play at the moment, which is why it's bringing BBM to Windows Phone users. BBM will operate on WP8 or newer, enabling further cross-platform messaging with BBM Chats, BBM Groups,...Read more...

BlackBerry is a shell of itself, but CEO John Chen has plans to bring the company back to prominence even as BlackBerry’s latest financials were released today showing losses for the year. BlackBerry eschewed its iconic physical keyboard for all-touchscreen devices with its Z10 and Z30 handsets, but after that didn’t pan out especially well, the company is getting back to its roots with the keyboarded Q20 smartphone. It appears that there’s more than one in the works, too. Chen told Reuters that there are at least three high-end smartphones that the company is developing, so it’s...Read more...

Facebook surprised a lot of people when Mark Zuckerberg announced his social network was acquiring WhatsApp, an instant messaging application for smartphones, for $19 billion, representing the company's biggest acquisition to date. When asked about the valuation, BlackBerry's CEO, John Chen, said he would take $19 billion for his company's messaging service in a heartbeat. "I work for the shareholder. Standard answer. If somebody comes to me with $19 billion, I would definitely sell it. I would recommend to the board to take it," Chen told CNBC. Chen also said he doesn't view BlackBerry Messenger...Read more...

Times are changing, and so is BlackBerry. The company that was once the envy of the mobile world has fallen on hard times, largely due to the fact that it never truly kept pace with change after the iPhone's reveal in 2007. Today, its market share is at a low point, and it's wondering how it's going to soldier on, and in what capacity. Turns out, BlackBerry may have an ace up its sleeve in the realm of software. In the halycon days of BlackBerry, BBM was the supreme mobile messenging platform. It had features that no other service had, it was used by millions, and it was so well-built that many...Read more...

It's typically not a great sign when a company has to come out and publish an open letter to the public in order to woo them back. Usually, by that point, the war has already been lost. In fact, one could argue that such an act makes the company seem even more desperate. Unfortunately, we aren't talking about hypothetical things; BlackBerry has been forced to do exactly this, just years after ruling the smartphone world. The open letter assured clients far and wide that BlackBerry was "here to stay," despite an announcement weeks back that could see the company taken private in a $4.7 billion deal....Read more...

The days of BlackBerry could be coming to an end... or, at least the BlackBerry that we all know today. As the company begins to deal with the reality of its situation -- a reality that shows massive declines in sales, a lack of interest from consumers, and highly formidable opponents in the smartphone arena -- it has decided this week to sell itself to a consortium led by Fairfax Financial. We all knew it would eventually come to this, and BlackBerry itself stated that it was looking to finalize a deal of some sort by November. Shortly after announcing plans to cut 4,500 jobs and focus more on...Read more...

BlackBerry has a problem: it just can't get enough attention from the consumer market. In fact, it's actually planning an exit from selling smartphones primarily to consumers in order to focus on lucrative enterprise contracts. But oddly enough, BlackBerry's latest problem has nothing to do with being unable to get attention; in fact, it's quite the opposite. Prior to launching BBM for Android, an unreleased version of the BBM for Android app was posted online. The "leaked" build, according to BlackBerry, was downloaded over a million times in just eight hours. Of course, since the build wasn't...Read more...

On one hand, this is huge news for BlackBerry. But on the other, it would've been far, far more monumental if this had happened five years ago. During BlackBerry's annual developer event in Florida today, the company announced that BBM (its proprietary messaging service, similar to iMessage for Apple devices) would finally be available outside of the BlackBerry family. This summer, BBM will be available for Android and iOS, allowing BlackBerry users to now message their friends who refuse to switch platforms. Initially, the BBM App will support iOS 6 and Android 4.0+. Upon release, BBM customers...Read more...

Cheaper than Spotify? Yup. More notable than iTunes? Depends on who you ask. Either way, Research in Motion has just launched the BBM Music app, shooting it out of beta and into the public eye. It's available this week for BlackBerry smartphone users from the App World, being hailed as a BBM-connected music service that enables viral music discovery and social interaction, allowing music fans to connect on a whole new level. BBM Music is a cloud-based service that allows users to enjoy an evolving, community-based music library together with their BBM Music friends. The size of a user’s...Read more...